Abstract
Characterizing the resolution of severe alcohol and other drug problems in moral (reformation), religious (redemption), psychological (reconstruction), criminal (rehabilitation), or medical (recovery, remission) language reflects larger conceptualizations of the sources, solutions and claims for institutional ownership of alcohol and other drug problems. This article traces the history of the concept of recovery in America as applied to alcohol and other drug problems and describes the addiction field's evolution through problem (pathology) and intervention (treatment) paradigms to the call for a recovery paradigm as its central “governing image”.